


time & time again

by oeztc



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Episode: s04e05 Buck Begins, Gen, Introspection, Maddie Buckley is a Good Sister, Protective Maddie Buckley, any maddie slander will not be tolerated, btw maddie buckley is my gf, i will hunt him for sport, if ryan murphy pulls his trademark happy family after years of abuse/neglect trope with the buckleys, not beta read sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oeztc/pseuds/oeztc
Summary: Evan Buckley was born to save a life.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	time & time again

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh hey y'all! i finally worked up the courage to actually publish a fic so ..,, please be kind lmao. i am like 100% sure this does not follow the canon timeline with like ages and stuff so sorry about that but i'm not going stress over it.  
> fun fact: im writing this instead of actually getting real life upset over the way they handled paul's transphobic sister in 911 lonestar AND/ALSO the way they have been writing owen and tk's father-son relationship this season AND!ALSO! the fact that they keep cutting out a shit ton of scenes. that is why it's kinda short lol
> 
> i made myself sad writing this but uh enjoy ! :)

Evan Buckley is 2 months old and he was born to save a life. It's sounds a lot more heroic than it is. It's depressing, actually; it's horrible, awful, a last attempt at salvation. A hail-mary.

Evan Buckley is 5 months old and he hasn't seen the sky in three weeks. He's constantly in the hospital, the one close to the house; not that he knows what the house looks like, really. He's in the hospital and it's not for him, of course it's not for him. It's never for him. 

Evan Buckley is 9 months old and he's been crawling for two. He stands up on his own two feet for the first time in the hallway of the ICU, and he doesn't notice his mother's tears or the way his father's jaw is clenched so hard it probably hurts. He does notice his older sister, Maddie, taking pictures with her mint-green Polaroid camera. When she sets the camera down and opens her arms wide for him, cooing, he doesn't think twice about wobbling into them. 

Evan Buckley is 1 year and five months old, and he sees an eastern red cedar for the first time. He hasn't been in a hospital in four months. If he could do more than babble and point, he'd ask why. He sits in Maddie's lap for most of his first long car ride. She's quiet and her eyes look a little glassy, but she's not as bad as his parents. His mother hasn't looked him in the eyes in eight hours; his father barely acknowledged him when he got out a mangled _Dada_ after multiple misfires. Maddie smiles down at him and pokes his cheeks, though, so it's okay. 

Evan Buckley is 6 years old and something is wrong. He doesn't know what he did, but his parents are mad at him. Constantly. It almost seems like they see taking care of him as a chore which, first of all, rude; why have a kid if you don't want to take care of them? When he asks Maddie _Why don't mom and dad love me?_ she gathers him in her arms and tells him that she loves him enough for the two of them. Her tears soak the shoulder of his crew neck, but he doesn't care. He pokes her in her sides until she's laughing more than she's crying, and she tries to tickle him back. He forgets about their parents for a couple of minutes.

Evan Buckley is 12 years old and he has a broken arm and a sprained ankle, his first of many moderate-to-serious injuries. He's on his middle school's district-wide basketball team, and he plays a very aggressive offense. Very aggressive. Maddie is sat on the edge of his bed, telling him all about the super incredible date she and her idiot boyfriend went on last night. He's happy for her, of course. He just doesn't like Doug.

Evan Buckley is 15 years old and Maddie is leaving him. Realistically, he knows that's what 18 year olds are supposed to do; graduate from high school, get a job, and move away. He's not thinking realistically right now, though. But Maddie is his sister, his left hand, basically, so he gives in. They link pinkies and it feels like goodbye. 

Evan Buckley is 20 years old and he doesn't know who he is. After he'd gotten over how mad he was at Maddie for bailing on their escape plan, he'd started sending her postcards. He hasn't heard from her in eight months. He doesn't know if he should be worried or not. 

Evan Buckley is 23 years old and spends his birthday with some of the other new recruits at the Fire Academy. They go out and they drink and they laugh, and it's fun. It is. That doesn't stop him from calling Maddie at midnight, not really expecting a response. He misses his sister.

Evan Buckley is 26 years old and he's a firefighter with the LAFD. Crazy, he knows. But something about helping people on a real, physical level makes him feel better about everything. About himself, about his childhood, about absent family members.

Evan Buckley is 27 years old and he's stuck under a fire truck. He can't feel his legs, which is concerning and he'd probably be more vocal about it if he could get his lips to move; he isn't even as worried as he should be about the teenager with the bomb strapped to his chest not even five feet away from him because _he can't feel his legs_. He's pretty sure he blacks out, and when he comes to there are feet pounding towards the area surrounding him and a hand in his. The hand squeezes, and someone to his right says _Hold on, Buck_ and then a pain like nothing he's ever felt before hits him like a freight train. He screams. He screams and screams because there's nothing else for him to do, and then he's out from under the truck and heaved up onto a gurney. He passes out the second the ambulance doors shut. 

Evan Buckley is 29 years old and he's in therapy. Actual, real therapy, too, not just some stupid journaling app on his phone or that one girl he hooked up with ten minutes into his first session. He made the decision to forgive his parents; it was pretty easy to do, considering they were never really his parents in the first place. He didn't do it for them, though. It was for him. _I don't have a box_ , Maddie says, _but here_. She hands him a ziploc full of 4 by 6 postcards, weathered by time. _You kept these?_ Evan asks, because he doesn't remember sending half of them. But he does remember that she had two suitcases when she left the first time; he remembers the smile Doug turned on him, the way it looked just a little off. Maddie smiles one of her real smiles and it shakes Evan out of the memory, and she responds in kind, _No matter how hard it got I always had these_. Evan's eyes are stinging but it doesn't feel awful; it's kinda nice. _I always had you._

No, Evan thinks. No, that's not right. _We always had each other._

Maddie leans into his shoulder with a laugh at a postcard from somewhere in Peru. She slips her hand into his and it's different than when they were little; somewhere along the line she got tiny or he got huge, and he's got a foot on her now. He can feel the difference; he remembers when Maddie would wrap her arms around him, pull him into her lap, press a kiss into his hair, and hide him from the world. What isn't different is the way she links their pinkies.

It's not goodbye, not this time. It's a promise. 

_We **have** each other. _

**Author's Note:**

> can you tell i'm projecting onto these fictional siblings


End file.
